PLS-7Z

No one really knew how to name them. This wasn't due to a lack of imagination, but rather, the seemingly inevitable expansion of mankind's own literature and thoughts. What after all, could one man imagine which hadn't been forseen by a hundred before? The actual name was long, and would have raised objections from some distant past comittee as it conflicted with other names for other programs. The military has always thought itself on top of things, but when the Uniform-Carbon Based Reinforced Nanoplate Exoskeleton was set in motion in a prototype, no one mentioned that 'U-CBRNE' actually hinted at something far more uninviting. So they numbly kept the acronym as part of the identification and inventory convention, and happily nicknamed it 'Jupiter.' Oh, and yeah, Pluto, you uneducated windbags, is the Roman god of the underworld. Jupiter.....bureaucrats.

Never failing to appreciate the classics, senior appropriations members were still doomed to never understand most of lessons contained therein. Maybe the Greeks were on to something, but I never really thought we should focus on a society known for authoring tragedy as a way to name our weapons of war. Those same 'members' (I use the term loosely, you understand), claimed that our war dead would soon never number higher than the accidentl handful due to fratricide, or accidents. So, they said the suits (more like vehicles if you ask me) should be "named for the Greek God of the Dead." I guess no one told them 'Jupiter' is the Roman name.

The first series came out of prototype assembly in 2027. There were 42. Albeit, the researchers, designers and engineers claimed each suit to be the equivalent to one full light infantry battalion of the mid-20th century, they had failed utterly at training the not quite hand-picked volunteers that were suppose to fight the prototypes. Result? Well, the same type of simulated fire training which had led to countless unbloody battles between traditional forces, left the four fire teams of Jupiter suits completely trashed.

You see, the guys trained to fight them were simply cooks, administrators and supply clerks, who were only assigned to the project so real people would give real feedback. If a polling had been done, the project leaders would have found that, first, none of the personnel assigned to test the suits were even remotely familiar with science, second none of the personnel had a clue what Nanoplate was and finally, only three had ever even been in a live combat situation. Sure, some had been tankers or cavalry, a couple had even been infantry, but that did not matter to the well-trained, seasoned, heavy combat division of more than 12,000 troops assigned to take the platoon out. The bottom line: Men will not charge a tank alone, no matter what you are wearing, if you don't think you'll survive. Every engagement which occured over the course of a 15 day exercise, found the suited troopers ducking, and running for cover which left them trapped, pinned and ultimately negated. The 'enemy' forces, simply cowed them into submission. No one had explained to the suited troopers, the whole purpose of the engagements, was to test the mobility, and adaptabilty of the suits. After all, why would a soldier run and hide from a tank if they were wearing a suit of armor capable of taking a depleted uranium sabot round to the head and not leaving more than a smear of glancing spall? The imagined conflict was a slaughter. The project leaders were spluttering by the end of the two weeks, while the 'enemy' commander just gloated and congratulated his soldiers on a job well done.

It took nearly ten months to recruit, fit, train and qualify 42 more, actual hand picked volunteers for the next exercise. By then, the Jupiter II was ready for fielding. (The observer teams, and engineers had collectively contributed more than 1,400 improvements, adjustments and capability changes to the scientists on the design team)

This time....the "exercise" would be exactly that, and no shortage of it, for the 'enemy'.....